A Voice That Crossed Every Border
Rob Base, born Robert Ginyard in Harlem, New York, has died at age 59 after a battle with cancer. The news, confirmed by CBC Arts, sent ripples through the hip-hop world and beyond — because few songs in the genre's history hit as universally as It Takes Two.
Released in 1988 alongside his partner DJ E-Z Rock, the track sampled Lyn Collins's Think (About It) and built something that felt less like a rap song and more like a communal experience. You didn't need to know anything about hip-hop to know It Takes Two. You just needed to be somewhere fun.
How 'It Takes Two' Defined an Era
The song peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 — modest by pop standards, but its cultural footprint dwarfed its chart position. It Takes Two became the soundtrack to aerobics classes, roller rinks, weddings, and sporting events throughout the late '80s and '90s. In Canada, it was inescapable. MuchMusic spun it, radio stations across the country played it to death, and it showed up at every school dance from Halifax to Vancouver.
For many Canadian music fans, it was one of the first hip-hop songs they ever heard — a gateway into a genre that was about to reshape popular music entirely.
Hip-Hop's Unlikely Ambassador
Rob Base wasn't a gangsta rapper or a political MC. He was a party rapper in the best possible sense — someone who understood that music's first job is to make people move. At a moment when hip-hop was still fighting for mainstream acceptance, It Takes Two made the argument for the genre simply by being undeniable.
That accessibility mattered enormously in Canada, where hip-hop had a slower road to radio airplay than it did in the United States. Songs like It Takes Two cracked open doors that allowed Canadian artists — from Snow to Maestro Fresh Wes to, eventually, Drake — to find a receptive audience already primed by the genre's raw, rhythmic energy.
A Legacy That Outlived the Charts
Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock released their debut album It Takes Two in 1988, and while subsequent records never quite matched that initial lightning-in-a-bottle moment, the original song never really left. It has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, been sampled and interpolated by other artists, and remains a fixture at events where the goal is simply to get people on their feet.
In an era where streaming data can quantify a song's reach with surgical precision, It Takes Two sits at hundreds of millions of plays — still finding new ears, still working exactly as intended.
Remembering Rob Base
Rob Base was 59. Details about his illness and survivors have not yet been publicly disclosed by his family.
For a generation of Canadians, his passing is the loss of a specific kind of joy — the kind that hits you the moment a familiar horn stabs through the speakers and you realize, before a single word is rapped, that everything is about to get better.
Hip-hop doesn't forget its architects. Rest easy, Rob.
Source: CBC Arts
